Around Us

By The Herald

Published 1:00 pm, Tuesday, September 13, 2011

AMARILLO — Four Amarillo policemen are no longer defendants in the federal lawsuit claiming a patron of a Polk Street bar was beaten just before officers shot Claudio Trujillo. That just leaves officer Jowell Bullard as a defendant.

Jesse Quackenbush and attorneys representing the four policemen filed an agreed order removing them from the suit on Monday.

Bullard’s attorney has not yet filed a response to the suit. Quackenbush added Bullard to the case Aug. 29 after filing the original suit May 26.

Tobin Tortella alleges Bullard threw him to the sidewalk outside Wild Cards nightclub bout 2 a.m. Jan. 29 as he waited for an acquaintance who was to drive him home. The lawsuit claims he was struck in the face, head, back and thigh, suffering a broken nose, bruises and cuts. He sat handcuffed in a patrol car parked on Polk as officers then ran south to respond to shots being fired.

In the chaos, Trujillo backed his Chevy Tahoe out of a parking lot onto Polk, and while facing north, started toward police who opened fire. They unleashed 40 shots because they feared for their safety and the safety of the public, according to police. Trujillo died later.

The officers generally deny all allegations in both cases. — Amarillo Globe-News

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LUBBOCK — Opening statements and testimony should begin today in the trial of a man accused of killing two Lubbock State School co-workers in 2006. Mickey Patterson, 61, is on trial for the murder of Kay Harrelson, 51, but is also accused of killing 61-year-old Peggy Merimon.

Patterson is charged with two straight murder charges. The case is not capital, meaning the death penalty isn’t an option.

Patterson is on trial for Harrelson’s murder. She was found decapitated not long after she disappeared and years before Patterson was arrested.

Harrelson’s body was found in a ditch about 1½ miles south of Shallowater less than two weeks after the two women disappeared.

The women left the school at lunchtime on Aug. 9, 2006, with a man police believe to be Patterson.

Harrelson and Merimon were seen getting into a car with the man.

Patterson was arrested in September 2009 in Bend, Ore., and extradited to Lubbock roughly two weeks later.

At that time Merimon’s remains were undiscovered, but a Lubbock County grand jury signed off on two sealed indictments alleging Patterson killed both women.

Merimon’s remains were found in May 2010, about 13 miles from where Harrelson’s body was found in 2006. — Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

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SNYDER — Snyder residents by the hundreds said they were rocked by a modest earthquake early Sunday.

The preliminary magnitude 4.4 quake happened around 7:30 a.m. about 11 miles north-northeast of Snyder in Scurry County, but was felt by people as far away as Lubbock 77 miles to the north and through much of East Texas and Louisiana, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

There were no damage reports around the quake’s epicenter in Scurry County, according to authorities with the Scurry County Sheriff’s Office and Snyder Fire Department.

Lt. Darrel Craig of the Snyder Fire Department said he was sitting in a recliner watching Sept. 11 memorial coverage when he felt the shaking, which lasted about five seconds, Craig said.

The U.S. Geological Survey received more than 200 reports from Snyder alone of people claiming they’d felt the earthquake.

Most in Snyder reported the earthquake’s intensity level at a 4 on a 10-point scale, producing light shaking but no damage.

At least two aftershocks, 2.5- and a 2.7- preliminary magnitude quakes, were reported about 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Sunday. — Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

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AMARILLO — A Texas businessman has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in a nearly $7 million securities fraud case targeting senior citizens.

A judge in Amarillo on Monday sentenced 77-year-old John Langford, who ran an insurance company and a property management firm, in addition to selling securities.

Prosecutor Randall Sims says Langford was using new investment funds to pay off previous clients.

Langford in July pleaded guilty in the fraud investigation. He was sentenced to seven 15-year prison terms for fraudulent sale of securities, four 10-year terms for acting as a dealer or agent without registering and four more 10-year terms for selling unregistered securities. The prison terms will be served concurrently. — The Associated Press

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LUBBOCK — Allen T. McInnes, dean of the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech since 2001, announced his plans to retire at the end of the school year.

The announcement, released Monday, stated he may stay on as dean until his successor is named.

During McInnes’ tenure, the college has expanded its curriculum to include energy commerce, health organization management, entrepreneurship and an executive-style MBA program. — Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

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AMARILLO — Residents of the Falcon Club neighborhood south of Bushland no longer have to boil their water to make it safe for consumption.

Falcon Club Utility Co., the water utility that serves the neighborhood, lifted its boil order on Sunday, according to the utility’s temporary operator Brent Herbolsheimer.

Herbolsheimer issued the boil-water notice on Aug. 22 after a series of low pressure occasions and outages due to increased water use this summer. — Amarillo Globe News